TradeStation Group, Inc. is the parent company of online securities and futures brokerage firms and trading technology companies. It is headquartered in Plantation, Florida, and has offices in New York; Chicago; Richardson, Texas; London; Sydney; and Costa Rica. TradeStation is best known for the technical analysis software and electronic trading platform it provides to active traders and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation Group was a Nasdaq GS-listed company from 1997 to 2011, until it was acquired by Monex Group, a Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed parent company of one of Japan's leading online securities brokerage firms.
History
TradeStation was founded by Cuban-born brothers William (Bill) and Rafael (Ralph) Cruz, who sought to create a way to design, test, optimize, and automate their own custom trading strategies. Bill started studying trading at the age of 16, and two years later, the brothers pooled $2,400 to open a futures trading account. They gathered trading data to create charts, which were used to test trading ideas. Bill began to test strategies himself without the benefit of formal coding knowledge, a process that resulted in the development of EasyLanguage, the company's proprietary coding language for non-specialists.
Bill and Ralph decided to start their own company, then known as Omega Research. The brothers focused on selling tools that would give clients without a technical or computer programming background the ability to program and test their own trading strategies. In 1987, they released System Writer, a software product that enabled users to develop and “back-test” their own trading ideas using historical market data. In 1989, System Writer Plus was released with new and innovative charting features, which the publication Commodity Trader Consumer Reports likened to “the system trading software equivalent of putting a man on the moon.”
In 1991, Omega Research released TradeStation and, three years later, struck a licensing deal with Dow Jones Telerate to offer TradeStation as a premium service to Telerate's institutional clients worldwide. In 1997, Omega Research conducted an IPO and became listed on the Nasdaq National Market. The company launched an online version of its product in 1999. In 2001, the company converted itself from a trading software company to an online securities brokerage and renamed itself “TradeStation”. The software's back-testing, order-generation and trade execution capabilities were fully integrated for both securities and futures markets in 2003. In 2004 and 2005, TradeStation became a self-clearing equities and options firm. An entire industry eventually grew up around TradeStation's software, including seminars, publications, and user networks.
1982 - company is formed under the name Omega Research, Inc. 1991 - TradeStation, the company's flagship product, is launched. 1996 - OptionStation, an options trading analytics product that enables traders to explore complex options trading strategies, is launched. 1997 - The company launches an initial public offering (IPO) and is listed on the Nasdaq National Market. 1999 - RadarScreen, a software application that enables traders to scan hundreds of symbols to identify buy and sell opportunities based on the user's custom criteria, is launched; the company also acquires Window On WallStreet and in 2000 launches WindowOnWallStreet.com, the company's first Internet-based charting and analytics service. 2000 - TradeStation 6, the Internet-based trading platform that serves as the foundation of the company's direct-access brokerage service, is launched; the company also acquires a direct-access securities brokerage, Onlinetrading.com, which is subsequently renamed TradeStation Securities, Inc. 2001 - TradeStation Group replaces Omega Research as publicly-traded Nasdaq company as a parent of two operating subsidiaries – TradeStation Securities, Inc. (formerly onlinetrading.com) and TradeStation Technologies, Inc. (formerly Omega Research); trading symbol on Nasdaq is changed from OMGA to TRAD. 2006 - TradeStation Europe Limited (now TradeStation International Ltd) receives approval from the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an introducing broker. 2011 - TradeStation Group is acquired by Japan's Monex Group;
Corporate structure
TradeStation Group, Inc.’s principal operating subsidiaries are TradeStation Securities, Inc. and TradeStation Technologies, Inc. TradeStation Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Monex Group, Inc., one of Japan’s largest online financial services providers.